Why Eurovision is Ukraine’s soft power secret weapon
Ukrainian group Go A perform at the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest. (Soeren Stache/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa via REUTERS)
What is Ukraine most commonly associated with? Throughout the past three decades of Ukrainian statehood, the answers to this question have often been depressingly bleak, ranging from the Chornobyl nuclear disaster to poverty, corruption, and war. These negative stereotypes have created additional hurdles for the country as it seeks to shake off the legacy of centuries spent under foreign rule and establish an independent international identity of its own.
It has not been all bad, of course. Sports stars such as football legend Andriy Shevchenko and the Klitschko boxing brothers have introduced global audiences to Ukrainian excellence, while the country’s increasingly world-class tech sector continues to challenge notions of post-Soviet stagnation.
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